“I know,” he said, tossing the top ones onto the coals and watching with approval as they burst into flame.
“But they’re so beautiful! You can’t just …”
He tossed another armload. As the baby saw the blue and purple flames that danced along the spines as the glue burned, she cried out and clapped her hands.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing!” cried China.
“Burning the books, China Wilm. Saying what Maire said: ‘Thank God there are no legends here.’”
“But you worked so hard on them. You loved them so!”
“I thought I did. But we need no bloody heroes, China Wilm. No more heavy legends, full of death and pain. No more heroes raising the stones to find marvelous things, and leaving the holes to become graves for those they’ve killed.”
She turned to face him, her brow furrowed, tears in her eyes.
“But Sam, Sam,” she cried. “What will you do without your books?”
He put his arms around her, held her close to him beside the fire as he watched the old bloody stories burn lie had not really thought what he would do without them. He had disposed of his sword belt. What would he do without a sword belt? And his helmet? He had flattened the top of his helmet, turned it upside down and planted herbs in it. He had done that yesterday. China would laugh when she saw it. And his books?
“What will you do without your books?” she asked again, worried about him.
It came to him what he would do for a while, until the time came when he would do something else. Perhaps the God told him, he thought. Or perhaps he thought of it for himself.
“Write new ones, China Wilm,” he told her, while the child laughed and the people sang and the fire sizzled in its embers.
“Listen to the God, and write new ones.”
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Also By Sheri S. Tepper
Land of The True Game
1. King's Blood Four (1983)
2. Necromancer Nine (1983)
3. Wizard's Eleven (1984)
Marianne
1. Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore (1985)
2. Marianne, the Madame and the Momentary Gods (1988)
3. Marianne, the Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse (1989)
Mavin Manyshaped
1. The Song of Mavin Manyshaped (1985)
2. The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped (1985)
3. The Search of Mavin Manyshaped (1985)
Jinian
1. Jinian Footseer (1985)
2. Dervish Daughter (1986)
3. Jinian Star-Eye (1986)
Ettison
1. Blood Heritage (1986)
2. The Bones (1987)
Awakeners
1. Northshore (1987)
2. Southshore (1987)
Other Novels
The Revenants (1984)
After Long Silence (1987)
The Gate to Women's Country (1988)
The Enigma Score (1989)
Grass (1989)
Beauty (1991)
Sideshow (1992)
A Plague of Angels (1993)
Shadow's End (1994)
Gibbon's Decline and Fall (1996)
The Family Tree (1997)
Six Moon Dance (1998)
Singer from the Sea (1999)
Raising the Stones (1990)
The Fresco (2000)
The Visitor (2002)
The Companions (2003)
The Margarets (2007)
Sheri S. Tepper (1929 –)
Sheri Stewart Tepper was born in Colorado in 1929 and is the author of a larger number of novels in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery, and is particularly respected for her works of feminist science fiction. Her many acclaimed novels include The Margarets and Gibbon's Decline And Fall, both shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, A Plague Of Angels, Sideshow and Beauty, which was voted Best Fantasy Novel Of The Year by readers of Locus magazine. Her versatility is illustrated by the fact that she is one of very few writers to have titles in both the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks lists. Sheri S. Tepper lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Sheri S Tepper 1990
All rights reserved.
The right of Sheri S Tepper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 11629 0
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Table of Contents
Title Page
Gateway Introduction
Contents
Hobbs Land
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Voorstod
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Website
Also By Sheri S. Tepper
Author Bio
Copyright
Raising The Stones Page 57